By Dianne Anderson

A year of knock down drag out debates on healthcare reform came to a head over the weekend as the   healthcare reform vote passed despite all of the racist, homophobic, tea-partying protestors.

Under the new reform signed into law this week, 95 percent of all Americans, over time, will have full access to healthcare coverage.

But the win didn’t come easy.

Protestors spewed the N-word at African American congressional member and civil rights-era legend John Lewis while walking to the House Chamber to cast his vote. They spit on the Rev. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo), who did not press charges following the arrest of his attacker. Several times, they called Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) a F-ggot.

Outraged, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) spoke from the floor, calling on the nation to denounce the Tea Partyers’ hate-filled attacks.

“Let me say this, baseball bats and dogs and fire hoses didn't stop John Lewis from the last cause that he had. And spitting on members and calling them names is not going to stop the progress of this bill,” he said.

And it didn’t. The House passed it 219-210.

Healthcare has become virulently racialized over the past year by Tea Partyers who are almost entirely white Republicans. Protestors have regularly shown up across the country over the past year carrying N-word signs, signs with guns in pictures with Obama, saying “kill the bill,” and anti-Semitic and other hate signs under the guise of health reform.

Even so, the national history of healthcare is no stranger to racism.

Last year, the American Medical Association wrote a letter to President Obama requesting that he implement reform to end healthcare disparities, including access to quality healthcare and increased  “cultural competence” in the health workforce.

In 2008, the AMA also offered its formal public apology nationally for its role of 100 years of racist   policies toward black doctors.

For Dr. Thomas Parham, the backlash seen this week around the health debate poses as much a threat to the psychological fabric of society as the lack of health insurance poses to America.

Parham, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Counseling and Health Services at UC Irvine,  said that many whites across the country who were accustomed to a Bush-Cheney regiment are having a hard time psychologically adjusting to a black man leading the nation and the White House.

“So it doesn’t matter what he sponsors, be it education, or healthcare, the Republicans are determined to try to defeat him whether it’s good or not for the American people,” he said.

Some people, he said, seem more comfortable with the notion of white privilege as a concept than the label of racism.

But, he added, the loss of that privilege evokes a lot of emotion in a lot of people. It amounts to insecurity, unfamiliar territory. Lost turf, and lost control.

To some whites, the social role switch is confusing.

“You’ve never seen Congressional people scream ‘you lie’ in the middle of the State of the Union Address. That’s profound disrespect they would only do to a black man,” he said. “They haven’t done that to Bush, no matter how much they disagreed on the war or his lies of weapons of mass destruction.”

It also didn’t happen during Clinton’s presidency despite major political opposition.

But the rabid response is trickling down from one side of the aisle of Congress, down into neighborhoods.

Dr. Parham estimates maybe five to ten percent of the white population are racist, but the real challenge are the whites who are decent people, who sit in silence.

“Racism is not black people’s problem, it’s white people’s problem. Until brothers and sisters in the white community begin to stand up, and say we’re not for you disrespecting our leaders, this is not going to change.”